by Nicola Jane
I laugh again. “You were fucking my mum. Didn’t you work out it was her who cares about bad press? Why do you think she hasn’t left my dad yet?” I turn to Maisy. “Lake will never forgive you for this. You’ve blown any chance of getting him back.”
“You’re welcome to him, but he won’t hurt me. I know he won’t,” she says smugly, and I shake my head. She has no idea what he’s capable of.
“If you were clever, you’d have taken my dad’s mistress. She’s who he cares about,” I mutter.
“Aliyah dumped his ass,” says Maisy, grinning. “That’s right, I know Aliyah. We’re good friends.”
“Wow, things just get worse,” I mumble. “You bunch of dumbass freaks, wait until the Kings find out I’m gone.”
“The Kings?” repeats the grim reaper from the corner.
I smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes. “You mean these muppets didn’t explain to you who this kid is?” I ask. “Whose ol’ lady I am?”
“He hasn’t claimed you,” Maisy butts in.
“The Kings Reapers?” asks the man, glaring at Alaric.
“It’s not about them,” says Alaric. “This is about Anthony Falcon!” he yells.
Leo begins to cry, and I immediately go to him. I haven’t heard his cry before. Without the machine, I don’t know if he’s getting enough oxygen. He’s probably hungry too. Grim reaper moves fast, slamming me against the wall. “We need to kill her and get out of here,” he hisses, glancing back at Alaric.
“Not until I get my money,” Alaric demands.
“You’re gonna kill me and an innocent baby?” I ask, shoving hard at his solid chest. He smirks at my attempt, moving his hand to my neck and gently squeezing.
“Yes, I am,” he says with confidence. I try to remove his hand. My fingers scratch against my skin as I try and prise them between my neck and his grip. It doesn’t relieve the pressure, and I begin to see stars as dizziness creeps in.
“Stop!” yells Maisy. “If you kill her now, we walk away with nothing,” she snaps. “Kill her if we aren’t getting anywhere. Kill her once we have the cash. But don’t do it yet. He might want to see she’s alive,” she reasons. The grip loosens, and I fall onto all fours, gasping to fill my lungs with air.
“Call Falcon. Get the ball rolling,” the man snaps.
I cradle Leo to my chest. I remember the nurses telling me that skin on skin is good for bonding and for warmth. At the hospital, he had a heat lamp to keep him warm and for jaundice. “He’s going to need feeding soon,” I croak, my voice strained from heavy hands squeezing my neck earlier. We’ve been here for two hours and Alaric hasn’t managed to get hold of my dad. No surprise there.
“Then feed him,” snaps Maisy.
“I don’t have any bottles,” I say.
“You’re his mum, you can feed him,” she hisses, nodding at my chest. If only it was that easy. Maisy grins. “Oh my god, you don’t even know how, do you?”
I shift uncomfortably. “Yes,” I snap, “but privacy would be nice.”
She rolls her eyes. “No one wants to see your tits anyway,” she mutters. I wait until they all leave before looking nervously at Leo.
“Right, little one, just me and you, so no pressure, right?” I mutter. I lift my shirt and place Leo to my breast, but he doesn’t do anything. I’ve seen babies moving their mouths to find the source of food, but he doesn’t. I watch helplessly. “You have to have something,” I whisper. “You’ll get dehydrated.” Instead, Leo snuggles against me. Maybe I just need to wait until he’s hungrier.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lake
We agreed I’d manage the club alongside Raven. She has experience because she’s been working with Vinn for the last few months, learning the ropes at his nightclub. I’ve never done anything like this, but fuck, I need this challenge. The pressure is on to make this work. The Kings have branched out into other businesses, hoping we can eventually move away from crime. Riggs’ recent health issues have given him the shove he needed, and now, Tillie has her bar, Anna’s running another bar, and we have this club.
I call Sara, to see if she’s still at the hospital so I can pick her up on the way home. Maybe we could go for food tonight. I want to speak with her about Maisy and my suspicions. She’ll need to be on guard around her. There’s no answer, but I have an incoming call from Riggs, so I skip the voicemail, deciding I’ll call her back.
“Yep?” I answer.
“Tiny lost Maisy a few hours ago,” he snaps.
“Okay, well, no big deal. Sara is at the hospital with Leo. Maisy’ll turn up later when she’s hungry.”
“Maybe. Tiny said she went into a fancy dress shop and never came out. He assumed she was trying on clothes, so he waited half an hour, but when he went in, the shop assistant said she’d gone out the back. Don’t you think that’s weird?”
“Maisy is weird,” I respond. “What did she buy?” I don’t know why I ask the question, but what the hell was she doing in a fancy dress shop anyway.
“Just a stethoscope,” says Riggs. “Maybe she’s into playing doctors and nurses,” he adds.
“The hospital uses those,” I say, my mind piecing together the evidence and rushing ahead with a ridiculous theory. It has to be ridiculous, right?
“Why would Maisy go to all that trouble if she just wanted to corner Sara and have a cat fight?”
I snatch my bike keys up from the desk and head for the door. “Maisy knows Falcon’s mistress, yeah?”
“Yes,” confirms Riggs.
“So, what if it’s all connected? Maisy, Aliyah, Alaric . . . we thought it was weird that Alaric was fucking Falcon’s wife, right? What if this is all a plan?”
“You’re getting all detective on me, Lake. Why would they have a plan? What would they want?”
“What does everyone want?” I ask. “Money!”
SARA
Alaric strokes Maisy’s hair. They’re sitting on the floor, and she’s sleeping, her head laid in his lap.
“I don’t understand any of this,” I whisper.
“You don’t need to,” Alaric mutters.
“Is it because I dumped you?” I ask.
Alaric sniggers. “Of course, you’d think this was about you,” he says coldly. “Rich bitch with a chip on her shoulder thinks the world is out to get her.”
“What am I supposed to think when I’m here?” I kiss the top of Leo’s head. I’ve laid him against my chest with my jumper wrapped around us both. He doesn’t seem phased by everything going on, but I don’t know how long he’ll be okay. He’s not had any milk for four hours now and he was feeding every two at the hospital.
“You’re collateral in my bigger picture.”
“My dad will never pay out. He hates being backed into a corner and he won’t believe for one second you’d hurt me or Leo.”
“He doesn’t fucking know me too well then, does he?”
“The hospital will have noticed we’re gone,” I say. “Lake will be looking for me.”
Alaric’s mobile shrills, waking Maisy. He smiles and presses it to his ear. “About time,” he says into the handset.
LAKE
“How long ago did she disappear?” I growl, and the nurse glances at the security guard nervously.
“We noticed as soon as handover was done, but another patient said she saw them leaving with a doctor and nurse, so there was a delay in realising they hadn’t been sent for tests. By the time we realised and checked with security, they said mother and baby had been transferred to a private hospital. It took more time to find out if that had been ordered by someone higher. We only alerted the police an hour ago and we’re still waiting for them to arrive.”
I clench my fists and begin pacing the room before I smash something.
“Any description of this nurse and doctor?” Kathleen asks.
“I know who took them,” I snap. “Will Leo be okay without all the machines?” I ask, waving my hand in the general direction of the mo
nitors.
“He was on oxygen, but the portable tank is missing, so they must have taken that. Providing he’s feeding, he should be okay for a few hours. All his observations and vital signs were good on his last check earlier today.”
Riggs rushes into the room, followed by Cree and Chains. “They’re gone,” he says, stating the obvious.
“Police are on their way, but they won’t treat it as suspicious yet. They’ll be looking for a mother taking her own child. It won’t be a priority,” says Cree.
My mobile rings and I frown at the number on the screen because I don’t recognise it. “Yeah?” I answer.
“Lake, it’s Anthony Falcon.” His voice is angry. “You need to come to my house urgently.”
We arrive to find Anthony Falcon pacing outside his front door. His wife is standing in the doorway, watching helplessly. “I’ve been made to look like a fool,” he growls the second I step off my bike. “And now they have Sara and Leo.”
“Where?” I yell, grabbing his shirt collar and hauling him against the wall. “What the fuck have you done?”
“Nothing! They want money!” he shouts. “I’ve been fucking played!”
“Lake, let him go. We need to know what the fuck’s going on,” orders Riggs, and I slowly lower Sara’s dad to the ground and step back.
He straightens his shirt and tie. “They want six million,” he eventually says, adding a snigger. “Like I can just pull that kind of money out of thin air.”
“Then give them the money,” I snarl.
“I don’t give in to demands,” he says coldly, and I make a move to grab him again, but Cree stops me this time.
“Easy, brother, you’ll get your fight,” he mutters.
“Who’s got them exactly?” asks Riggs.
“Alaric. I trusted that ass,” snarls Falcon. “I gave him my daughter.”
Cree grips my arm tighter, sensing me pulling away. “You’d better get talking,” I growl.
Falcon takes us inside. I sneer at Sara’s mum, who wipes away fake tears as we pass. Falcon pours himself a whiskey and takes a seat behind his desk. My patience is running out and I glance at Cree. “Spit it out,” snaps Cree. “We ain’t got all day.”
“Aliyah isn’t pregnant. It was a lie. She’s been spending on my cards. I got a call from the bank today to say my limits have been reached on three cards.” He rubs his head. “Fuck!”
“What the hell’s that gotta do with Sara?” I yell.
“They’re all in it together. Aliyah and her boyfriend and Alaric and his girlfriend.”
“So, they took your daughter for money?” asks Riggs.
Falcon nods. “I was paying Alaric to date Sara. If he claimed Leo as his, then I’d pay him a lot of money.”
“But when that fell through . . .” Riggs says, glancing at me.
“I pulled out. Of course, I did. He expected me to pay him anyway. I wasn’t going to pay him two million for nothing.”
“Two fucking mil!” I repeat.
“It was a lifetime commitment. Plus, the house in Knightsbridge and the home in Spain,” Falcon says, trying to justify it.
“How could you sell your grandchild!” Cree spits out.
“I can’t have my name dragged through the mud,” snaps Falcon. “The press would have a field day, my daughter with a gang member!”
“Jesus,” I hiss. “So, he’s pissed he didn’t get his money?”
“He tried to use my wife as a bargaining tool, saying he’d go to the press. He’s got intimate pictures of the two of them together,” he continues to explain. “When that didn’t work, he got desperate.”
SARA
I cry in frustration. Leo won’t feed, and he’s lethargic and sleepy. I don’t know if that’s normal for a prem baby, but I’m panicking. I try again to latch him onto my nipple, but he cries instead. “Shit,” I whisper. “Please, Leo, please just have something.” I squeeze until milk coats his lips and drips into his open mouth. His crying stops and his tongue darts out, causing me to smile. “See, it’s nice,” I say. I try again and this time, he closes his mouth around the nipple and tries to suck. It takes a few attempts, but eventually, it feels like he’s latched on and suckling. I sigh in relief. If he’s feeding, that’s a good sign, I tell myself.
Alaric comes in, and I pull my top around me so he can’t see anything. He smirks. “Daddy hasn’t called back. I hope he isn’t doing anything stupid like calling the police,” he says in a singsong voice.
“He’ll be ignoring you,” I say. “What I don’t get,” I continue, “is why you went there with my mum?”
He sits down on the floor opposite me. “At least fucking you was pleasurable,” he says, and I shudder. “Fucking your mum was like fucking a dried-up old prune, but it was necessary. I got some good pictures of her.” He smirks. “Might sell them too if daddy doesn’t pay up soon.”
“What have you asked for?”
“Six million,” he says, and I laugh. “What? He can afford it.”
“Of course, he can, but there’s no way he can just give you that much. His money is tied up in stuff. He doesn’t have six mil in his bank account.”
The grim reaper, who’s spent most of his time in the corner, shifts, and I jump. I forgot he was there, he’s so quiet. “You checked that out, right?” he grunts.
“Of course, I did,” snaps Alaric.
“Oh my god, you didn’t,” I say, grinning.
Alaric slaps me hard, and I cry out, scaring Leo and unlatching him from his feed. His hand grips my neck, and I try desperately to protect Leo’s head by holding it close to my chest. “I will slit your throat if you laugh at me again,” he threatens. His spittle lands on my face, and I resist the urge to wipe it. I nod, and he releases me. “I’ve fucking had enough,” he says, snatching Leo from my arms, and I shout out, scrambling to my feet to get him. Grim reaper grabs me, pulling my arms behind my back, as Alaric snaps a picture of Leo crying. “How long will he last if I just lay him on the floor?” he asks, smirking at me.
“You’re gonna kill a kid? An innocent kid?” I scream with tears running down my cheeks. “Let me call him! I’ll speak with him and get the money,” I beg.
Alaric smiles. “Good idea,” he says, handing Leo back to me.
LAKE
Falcon holds up the phone and a picture of Leo fills the screen. He’s crying, his face red and angry-looking. Everything in me is racing—my heart, my blood, my head. I need to find them. The phone lights up, and I snatch it, placing it to my ear. “Listen to me, you piece of shit!” I yell.
“It’s me,” comes Sara’s soft voice, and I almost fall to my knees when I hear her. “I don’t have long.”
“Where are you? Are you hurt?” I ask.
“They want the money. They’re not messing around. They’re gonna hurt Leo if my dad doesn’t give them what they want.”
“Okay,” I say. “We’ll sort it. Is Leo okay?”
“Yes, but I don’t know for how much longer,” she says, her voice cracking. “Hurry. I can’t seem to see the wood for the trees,” she mutters.
I frown. “It’ll be okay, baby. I’m with your dad now. We’ll sort it all out and you’ll be home soon.”
“I can’t last another fifteen minutes in this—” The line goes dead, and I stare at the phone in my hand, confused.
“She was saying some weird shit,” I mutter. “Maybe she’s delirious.”
“What did she say?” asks Riggs.
“That they’re not messing around. They’re gonna hurt Leo if they don’t get their money. She said something about not seeing the wood for the trees. Ain’t that an old saying for when things are tough?”
“Or it’s a clue,” suggests Cree. “She’s in some woods?” Riggs pulls out his phone and brings up a map.
“Fifteen minutes. She said something about fifteen minutes,” I say. “What’s around this area that matches that description?”
We stare at the phone, and Riggs zooms in on
a small woodland area around ten to fifteen miles away. “Worth a try instead of sitting around wasting time with this ass,” says Riggs. “I’ll call the guys and have them meet us nearby.”
“Get Leia to come too. We’ll need her nursing skills,” I add.
SARA
I wrap Leo tight in his blanket and lay him back in the incubator. I’m praying that Lake took my hints, but it cost me a good beating from the reaper in the corner. I wince with each movement. “Aliyah is gonna lose her shit when I tell her how you idiots have fucked this up!” The man is yelling at Alaric and Maisy outside the cabin.
“It isn’t fucked yet. You heard her tell her dad we’re serious.”
“I knew this plan was fucked from the start. I knew we shouldn’t have involved you. Aliyah had him under her thumb, but then she got greedy.”
“Calm yourself,” says Maisy. “We’ll get the money.”
I pick up a rolling pin from the kitchen. It’s the heaviest thing I can find without rummaging in drawers, and I don’t want to attract any attention. I’ve had about as much as I can take from these clowns. My baby needs medical help, and he won’t get it if I sit here waiting for my dad to rescue us. The door opens and Maisy steps in. I wait until she’s closed it before swinging the pin at her temple. She doesn’t see it coming, and I knock her clean out. She lands in a heavy heap on the ground, and I give a little triumphant jump.
I drop the pin and kick it away from me, grabbing the small handgun in Maisy’s waistband. I’ve never fired a gun, never held one, come to think of it, but how hard can it be?
The door opens again, and I point the gun at Alaric’s shocked face. He glances down at Maisy. “What the fuck have you done?” he growls.
“Take another step and I’ll shoot you,” I warn.
He grins. “You’re suddenly a killer?”
“No, I’m a tired, hungry mama bear who needs to get her baby some help. Fucking test me, I dare you.”
